ARC Physics Basis Progress

Commonwealth Fusion Systems plans to build ARC, a high magnetic field tokamak, as the first fusion pilot plant by the early 2030’s. ARC will follow SPARC, now under construction, where a primary focus of the SPARC research program will be to inform ARC design and operation. The ARC design, which has evolved from earlier iterations [1,2], targets production of 400 MW net electric power based on achieving H₉₈=1.0 in pulsed, inductive operation and leveraging HTS magnet technology for a compact design. Part of the DOE Milestone Program, CFS initiated a set of physics studies to increase the fidelity of analysis for the scenario at the ARC design point and inform the SPARC research program in support of ARC, which will result in a set of peer-reviewed publications similar to the SPARC Physics Basis [3]. A summary of results so far will be presented, which includes analysis of ARC divertor operation in the SepOS framework[4], estimates of disruption loads and M3D-C1 VDE simulations, fusion performance predictions with ASTRA/TGLF coupled to an EPED neural network along with higher fidelity CGYRO full profile predictions within the PORTALS framework[5], and analysis of 3D field coil designs for error field correction with GPEC.



[1] Sorbom et al, FED 2015

[2] Kuang et al, FED 2018

[3] Creely et al, JPP 2020

[4] Eich et al, NF 2021

[5] Rodriguez-Fernandez, NF 2024